Room Fate

May 10, 2013 at 1:13 pm

Introduction

There are some people you can't help but associate with other people. In the case of Boo and Kristen, it's not because they officially do the same things on campus but because at the end of the day, they always come back to the same place. For the past four years, they've had a very cool story.

Boo (Alexandra) is a Computer Science major, Neuroscience concentrator from Seattle, Washington. She's a Student Departmental Adviser for computer science and an Intro to CS Prefect. She studied abroad this winter break in Dubai and is planning on working at a tech company in San Francisco next year.

Kristen is an Environmental Studies major. She is a director of Ebony II, a member of the Semaphore Dance Company, and she volunteers at a Northfield farm. Kristen is from Davis, California, and studied abroad this winter break in Bangladesh on a program about developing economies. She also went on the winter break comparative agro-ecology program in China last year.

Boo (left) and Kristen (right), chillin'.

Boo: We were paired together freshman year, like normal.

Kristen: At first I thought Boo was going to be really weird, because I got the email from Carleton saying that her name was “Alexandra” and I tried to look her up on Facebook and she didn’t exist, I guess because she was under “Boo” and I was like, “Who is this girl?”

B: I thought you were going to be much too cool for me. Because you’re a dancer, you would be so graceful…which you are. But it turns out you still want to be friends, even though I’m very clumsy!

That first night we had in our room… at home, I had bars on my bed because it was a loft bed, but that was not true in Goodhue…The first night I somehow in my sleep launched myself out of the bed and into the floor.

K: And we hadn’t really talked that much the first night. So basically we both woke up at like three in the morning, and I was in bed and Boo was in the middle of the floor, not even next to the bed, but like several feet away from the bed. We both just looked at each other and were very confused. We didn’t know what to say.

B: I didn’t really know where I was….

K: And that was the beginning of our beautiful roommate friendship. Which has lasted all four years of Carleton.

B: It’s the best…

K: I love Boo.

B: I love Kristen.

FRESHMAN YEAR

B: We lived in Goodhue. It was great.

K: Yeah, we had a great freshman floor.

B: We still hang out with them, pretty frequently, I would say.

K: At first I wasn’t really sure how close of friends Boo and I were going to be. I feel like from the outside surface level we don’t have that much in common. We have very different interests. Like, Boo hates the sun and I love the sun. Boo hates swimming and I love swimming. And Boo hates pepper and I love pepper. And, I don’t know…very important things. I thought, “Maybe we’ll get along, but I don’t know if we’ll be that good of friends.” But every night when we would go to bed we would turn out the lights and just end up talking for hours and hours.

SOPHOMORE YEAR

B: I had a better draw number that year. And I really wanted to live with Kristen because she was the nicest and such a good roommate and we were friends, but I was so nervous to ask her. It was a very long time after draw numbers were released that I worked up the courage.

K: It sounds like you were trying to ask me out on a date or something.

B: I wanted to make sure she had time to talk to other people, in case maybe she was interested in living with someone else…I was really really scared, but then she said that she would be my roommate again.

K: Yeah, of course! No need for Boo to be scared. I guess I hadn’t really thought about it that much but I definitely wanted to room with Boo too. It was obvious: YES. And yeah, we ended up drawing into Goodhue again. The same floor, across the hall from our old room.

B: To a slightly smaller room.

K: Downgrade.

B: And a lot of our freshman floor stayed on that floor too. Like, at least…

K: Seven or eight people.

B: So third Goodhue stayed relatively the same for our sophomore year.

K: Sophomore fall we both started dating people, which was kind of weird because it happened at the same time. And then we would have double dates all the time.

B: We would watch a lot of movies.

K: But very weird movies.

B: Like the Calamari Wrestler!

K: I don’t know if our boyfriends liked hanging out together…

B: That’s a good point! I never really thought about that.

K: But it was fun for us.

B: Yeah, definitely.

JUNIOR YEAR

K: Junior year we got to live in a townhouse! It was really exciting. A senior drew us in which I was really not expecting at all. Hannah (the senior) had asked me if I wanted to live with her and I was like “Yes, but I need to room with Boo.” Obviously. So Boo and I roomed together in a townhouse, which was absolutely great. And that was cool because we got to not only live in a room together but share a whole house and cook and hang out with everyone. It was the best.

B: And it was all of our friends also in the house, so you were never going to have to come home and be around people that you didn’t really want to see, which was really nice.

K: Most of our other friends were in normal dorms, so we had lots of people over for dinner and hanging around the house, which was fun.

B: Yeah, that’s true too. I feel like in the fall term so many of our friends were abroad and spring term some of our friends were abroad too. But fall term there were so few people that weren’t living with us that were not abroad.

K: So true!

B: I feel like everyone who was at Carleton bonded a lot.

K: What did we do? We had a lot of dance parties, which were awesome.

B: Yeah, a lot of Taylor Swift dance parties.

K: The neighbors below us had to tell us to please stop stomping on the floor because it was too loud for them.

SENIOR YEAR

K: We’re in a townhouse again, with many of the same people. I feel like it just had become assumed that we would live with each other, not in a bad way. I wouldn’t want to live by myself and I wouldn’t want to live with anyone else, so we are obviously rooming together again.

B: Pretty great…

K: It’s the best, as usual. Senior year…it’s been interesting. Much more stressful than other years but a lot more chill. It’s very happy but it’s also been sad at times.

K: My favorite part of rooming with Boo is our late night conversations. Which is not something all roommates have to do obviously, but I feel like that’s why we became close in the first place.

B: That’s totally true. And we’ve had a lot of interesting ideas stem from them!

K: Like the sloth movie, Sloth In The Shower! Just imagine a sloth trying to take a shower. That’s hilarious.

B: I feel like talking to Kristen late at night is my biggest de-stresser when everything is so complicated. We can just talk it out. Lying down.

K: Sometimes I fall asleep in the middle of our conversations, which is a little embarrassing.

B: Sometimes Kristen falls asleep in the middle of saying something in a conversation, which for me is hilarious.

K: Be good about what you need and want in the room. Work on communicating. Let the room be a place that isn’t stressful where people can come back and be calm. Let people talk about things if they need to.

B: I do feel like if you’re living with someone and it’s a time when things are complicated, they might see that when other people wouldn’t and it just makes things so much easier when you feel like you can express whatever you need to and your roommate’s not going to be judgmental.

On living with someone in college

K: It’s going to be great!

B: Even if you don’t think your roommate and you don’t have much in common, you can still be good friends.

K: Boo and I just decided we’re going to live together for reunion. It was a very emotional discussion.

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Comments

May 14 2013 at 7:23 pm

Kim W.

Loved reading this! So fun to hear about the blossoming of the friendship of K and B. A little like Frog and Toad? Not the same but wonderful friends anyway. May everyone find a friendship that is so safe and supportive as yours! Love, Kim

The bloggers

Hi! My name is Rachel and I’m from Santa Monica, California. I'm a senior philosophy major and I can't believe this is my last term at Carleton!

This spring, I plan on finishing my senior thesis ("comps"), mastering a left-handed Frisbee throw, thinking about ethics a lot, and being a good friend. I'm also excited to continue working at the Perlman Center for Learning and Teaching and the Academic Civic Engagement Center (which I will explain more this term, I promise!) and participate in some really cool discussion groups.

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